Walter Stitt Robinson Jr. served as a Captain in the United States Army (82nd Airborne Division) from 1941 to 1945. Interviewed by Pattie Johnston on March 26, 2007, Robinson talked about his experiences during the Second World War. Robinson was born in North Carolina on August 28, 1917. He graduated from high school in 1935. He then received a bachelor’s degree from Davidson College in 1939 and a master’s degree in history from the University of Virginia in 1941. He was drafted into the Army in November 1941. He completed basic training at Camp Croft in Spartanburg, South Carolina. He went to Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning and worked as an instructor at Fort McClellan in Alabama. Robinson then went overseas to the European theater of war. He took part in the invasion of Southern France in 1944, the Battle of the Bulge, and the airborne crossing of the Rhine into Germany in 1945. He was discharged in 1945 and received the Bronze Star. Following the war, in 1950, Robinson received a PhD in history for the University of Virginia. He then taught history at the University of Kansas from 1950 until he retired in 1988. Robinson passed away on July 2, 2014.
